R Raichev - The Death of Corinne

Keeping the binoculars close to her eyes Eleanor gazed in the direction of the house, at the french windows on the ground floor. No light, even though it was such a dark morning. She saw that on the outside the windows were festooned with climbers…

Her attention was suddenly drawn to a window on the first floor of the house. Somebody had entered the room and turned on the electric light. The curtains weren’t drawn across that window and she could see perfectly. A woman. Late forties? An oval face, short brown hair – olive-green dress – pleasant, intelligent – keen look – rather a flushed face. The woman stood there, as if on an illuminated stage. How easy it would have been to take a shot at her, if one had a gun and felt the inclination. One couldn’t possibly miss. Eleanor twisted her head to one side, shut her left eye and pretended to take aim. She made a popping sound with her lips.

The woman had started moving around the room. Something furtive and guilty about her manner. What was it she felt so guilty about? It wasn’t her room. Of course. Eleanor’s interest increased greatly with this discovery. The woman was a stranger but Eleanor could identify with her – she knew how she must feel. We are both trespassers, she thought – we’d be in trouble were we to get caught… It felt as though she were in a box at the theatre, watching a play. She brought the binoculars closer to her eyes. Would the woman see Eleanor’s white blob of a face staring up at her if she were to glance out of the window? Unlikely… At any rate the woman was walking away from the window – in the direction of a desk in the corner… She was opening the briefcase that lay on top of the desk. She took out a folder, then another one – she seemed to be looking for something.

Quick, quick, Eleanor urged her, beating her palm against the glass panel, infected by the woman’s frenzy. She trembled with excitement and dread. Make haste, girl, or they’ll catch you! Somebody may come in any moment! Eleanor felt the urge to cross over to the house, throw a pebble at the window, draw the woman’s attention, talk to her, confide in her, seek her counsel – feminine counsel had its special place in times of turmoil – impossible of course -

The woman seemed to have found what she was looking for. Eleanor saw her lips part. An object inside the case – what was it? Some document? A letter? No, a photograph – yes. The woman was looking down at a photograph. Eleanor saw her eyes widen in recognition. (She was sure it was recognition.) What a shame she couldn’t see what was in the photograph! How frustrating! Eleanor beat the pane with her fist

…

It must be something quite astonishing.

The Fool of Love

Antonia entered the billiard room, doing her best to appear as calm and normal as possible. She watched her husband play a shot and miss rather an easy cannon off the red. Major Payne made an impatient gesture and grumbled that it was too damned hot in the room, didn’t they think? Impossible to concentrate. His face was very red and he had an expression like thunder. Antonia guessed that he had been losing game after game to Jonson… Hugh was not a particularly gracious loser. The squabbles they had over Scrabble! He seemed bent on revenge. Both men were in their shirtsleeves, facing each other across the billiard table, holding up their cues, scowling – like duellists en garde, Antonia thought.

Lady Grylls was sunk in one of the two dark leather button-backed chairs by the fireplace. She had a black silk Chinese shawl embroidered with dragons around her shoulders. She was eating chocolates out of a circular box embellished with mauve orchids and lavender silk ribbons, sipping brandy from a balloon glass and smoking through a long jet-black holder. A gold ribbed cigarette case with pave sapphires lay on the round table beside her chair. She had a stately and somewhat decadent air about her – rather as if she taught etiquette on a pirate ship, Antonia thought.

Lady Grylls had been telling her nephew and Jonson how she could have become Princess Philip of Greece. That was back in 1946, the year before Philip had married the Queen. Lady Grylls hadn’t been married either – she’d been a mere Hon. They had met during an extremely dull shooting party. Philip had been jolly keen, but she hadn’t reciprocated his ardour. Still, she had been fascinated by his turbulent family history and strange genetic heritage. His grandfather had been assassinated, his father exiled, his mother had become a nun and had then been consigned to a lunatic asylum, at least one of his sisters had married a Nazi. ‘When we met again a couple of years ago he thought I was somebody else.’ Lady Grylls sighed.

It was quarter past eleven. They had been having coffee – a tray with three ultra-thin porcelain cups, red with gold borders, and a silver pot stood on a side table. Antonia had heard Lady Grylls describe the new brand of coffee her suppliers sent her as ‘rich and dark as the Aga Khan’, which, she gathered, had been a non-PC advertising slogan from Lady Grylls’s youth.

‘Hugh, I’d like a word.’ Antonia tried to smile. ‘I do apologize, but it’s important.’

‘Ah, the little secrets of the newly-weds… A chocolate, my dear? The violet creams are particularly heavenly.’ Lady Grylls proffered the box but Antonia declined. ‘You are on a diet, admit it!’ Lady Grylls cried gleefully.

Payne put down his cue. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy. I haven’t finished with you yet,’ he told Jonson. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked Antonia.

‘Wait,’ she mouthed.

Up in their room she said, ‘I found it. The photograph. It was in Jonson’s case. He did bring it with him.’

Major Payne looked scandalized. ‘You ransacked Jonson’s room?’

‘I didn’t ransack his room. The photo was in his case. You won’t believe this -’

‘You don’t think it’s Corinne? Is that why you are so excited?’

‘No… It’s her all right. At least it looks like her. She has very short hair and a wig can be seen on her dressing table – it’s exactly as Jonson said.’ Antonia frowned as though for a moment something bothered her, then waved her hand. ‘That’s not it. There is a photograph on Corinne’s dressing table. A framed photograph -’

‘A photograph within the photograph? A double-edged clue, eh? Who’s in it?’

She told him. He stared at her. ‘Fancy now… A framed photograph on Corinne’s dressing table suggests a degree of intimacy. Are you sure?’

‘I am sure, yes.’ Antonia paused. ‘He looks younger but it’s him all right… When did they meet?’ The next moment she gasped. ‘Of course. The second concert. So he did tell a lie!’

‘Yes. Let’s make assurance doubly sure.’ Payne turned round and made for the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Going to phone my sister. She will tell us… Amanda’s always at home these days – ever since she got divorced and became an agony aunt to the great and the good.’

There was nobody in the hall. Payne walked across the parquet floor that had been recently polished by Nicholas. The portrait of the eighth Baron Grylls stared down at him disapprovingly from its momentous place at the foot of the staircase, as though to say, No scandals in our family, but Payne ignored him. His eyes fixed momentarily on the glass case above the massive fireplace, which contained a grotesquely large stuffed salmon that had been caught by the ninth Baron in the Spey in 1920, pinkish but dull, its body’s dance and sheen long gone. He walked up to the small table, where the ancient black telephone made of Bakelite stood beside a Waterford bowl filled with rose petals, and dialled his sister’s Park Lane number.